Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Timothy Noble (born 1966) and Susan Webster (born 1967), are British artists who work as a collaborative duo. They are associated with the post-YBA generation of artists.

Early lives and careers

Noble and Webster attended fine art foundation courses at Cheltenham Art College (now the University of Gloucestershire) and Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University) respectively. The two first met in 1986 as Fine Art students at Nottingham Trent University, became good friends through shared interests, particularly their tastes in music.

Their work features in a number of public collections, the Arken Museum of Modern Art, Denmark and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

In 2007, they were awarded the prestigious Arken Prize, and in 2009 they received Honorary Doctorates of Art from Nottingham Trent University, their former college, in acknowledgement of their artistic achievements to date.

The artists are currently represented by BlainSouthern in London.

Work

Tim Noble and Sue Webster's work can be divided into the 'Light Works' and the 'Shadow Works', though Webster does not see them as completely separate. She says:

The influence of music on their art, particularly punk rock, has been of great importance to them since they began their earliest collaborations: Says Noble:

Adds Webster:

Sir Norman Rosenthal, the former Exhibitions Secretary of the Royal Academy, writes:

Shadow sculptures

The Shadow Sculptures incorporate diverse materials including household rubbish, scrap metal and taxidermy animals. By shining light onto these assemblages they are transformed into highly accurate shadow profiles of the artists.

thumb|right|upright|Miss Understood & Mr Meanor, 1997Discussing their shadow works, Webster commented: "Our work is incredibly unsocial. There has to be complete darkness because you need to give the light and then to take it away again."

Their first shadow sculpture, 'Miss Understood and Mr Meanor', 1997 (right), came into existence through experimentation with the assemblage of personal items and domestic trash. The silhouettes are formed by lights shining on mounds of rubbish, which includes broken sunglasses and pin badges for rock bands. In this particular work the artist's heads are severed and impaled on stakes.

Through their shadow sculptures they managed to fuse the abstract and the representational, a pursuit that consumed the likes of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Francis Bacon. This work is composed of a new kind of self-portrait, sculpted out of six months' worth of the artists' rubbish; the remains of everything they needed to survive during the time it took to make the work. A single light source illuminates the pile of rubbish thus casting a portrait in shadow, which contrasts sharply with the materials used to create it; the artists leaning against each other, back to back, enjoying a glass of wine and a cigarette.

In September 2000, they were invited to participate in 'Apocalypse', the Royal Academy's follow up to the infamous Sensation exhibition of 1997. For this they presented 'The Undesirables', which comprises a mountain of detritus collected from outside Tim and Sue's house with a shadow image of the artists hovering above. The appearance of a huge pile of rubbish in one of the largest galleries within the Royal Academy was intentionally radical and shocking, created to challenge viewers' assumptions about art.

In 2006, an exhibition of their work was held at the Freud Museum, entitled 'Polymorphous Perverse'.'Black Narcissus', a sculpture made of black silicone casts of Webster's fingers and Noble's penis in various states of arousal, was placed in Sigmund Freud's study next to a bust of Freud himself. When illuminated the sculpture cast a double profile portrait of the artists, illustrating how sexuality influences our perception of reality reflecting the sexuality that Freud discovered at the core of human life. Another work, 'Scarlett', 2006 (see below video on 'External link') was a "worktable on which numerous bizarre mechanical toys are working and seemingly in the process of being made; a nightmarish setting of repressed sexual and sadomasochistic fantasies and transgressions."

Light sculptures

The light sculptures, created in tandem with their shadow investigations, are constructed out of computer sequenced light-bulbs that perpetually flash, sending out messages of, often simultaneous, love and hate. The sculptures reference the iconic pop culture symbols of Britain and America, recalling carnival shows and signage typical of working-class sea-side Britain, Piccadilly Circus, Las Vegas and Times Square.'Toxic Schizophrenia (Hyper Version)' was their first permanent public sculpture, unveiled at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, May 2009.

Contradictions and irony abound in the works exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery, Beverley Hills exhibition, 'Instant Gratification', 2001. 'The Crack' displays at one moment an abstract shape that is perhaps reminiscent of a heroic mountain landscape by Clyfford Still, with its cracks and gullies; gradually we begin to perceive the full-length naked profiles of our friends approaching each other, nipples touching, as though they are about to make love again for the millionth time.' The artists produced a version of these figures overlaid with their own facial features. The sculptures are installed so that they stand in isolation in an apparently infinite space. Their hairlessness evokes conflicting connotations; they could be the first humans or the last – cave people, or the survivors of a nuclear holocaust. 'Electric Fountain' (see 'External links' below for video clip) represents the artist's take on the world's oldest form of public art, the fountain. Said Webster: "Electric Fountain mimics the tradition of a fountain as a monument found in public squares around the world, but its magic lies in the emulation of light where water should be." The fountain can be seen as both a celebration of contemporary culture and an ambiguous comment on the nature of consumer society, embodying themes that are often present in the duo's work. The original brickwork was painted a dark brown, offset by two rows of window openings, and a 'floating' roof that appears to hover over the upper level of glazing and recessed decks.

In 2012, Sue purchased the Mole Man House in Hackney for $1.1 million. Previously owned by William Lyttle, the house was greatly dilapidated when purchased including the roof having fallen in. Sue again hired architect David Adjaye who had worked on her previous house. The massive tunnel system had mostly been filled by the town council, but an enormous basement area was created for the art studio using some of the space Lyttle had tunneled out of the ground beneath the home. An enormous amount of rubble and trash had to be removed which equaled around 300 skips worth—one skip a day .

Personal lives

Noble and Webster were married on 7 June 2008. The wedding party was held on board the Queen Elizabeth, the boat that was used for the Sex Pistols' infamous 'Jubilee party'; also held on the same day as the Pistols' party, 31 years later. The service was conducted by their friend and fellow artist Tracey Emin.

It was announced on 4 January 2013, that after 20 years together, Noble and Webster were to divorce.

Selected bibliography

'British Rubbish will be published by Rizzoli in Autumn 2011